In the enterprise virtualization world VMWare is the dominant force but companies like Microsoft have been working to change the virtual world. With acquisitions and improvements in their software and licensing structure Microsoft's Hyper-V has become more appealing to businesses around the globe.

Target stores decided they liked the options for virtualization that Microsoft provided so the two companies struck a deal. Target plans to roll out Hyper-V to all 1,700 of its stores and in the process creating 15,000 virtual machines. By moving their systems to a virtual environment they will be able eliminate 8,000 physical servers from their environment which includes moving to two servers per store rather than seven.

Target is just one example of the kind of large-scale deployments we’re seeing with Microsoft Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center. Particularly as organizations are contemplating cloud computing, they find comfort in knowing the Microsoft platform can virtualize and manage all kinds of applications — Microsoft’s, a third party’s or home-grown — on a massive scale.

Target can add itself to a list of of other retailers that have decided to adopt Hyper-V as their virtualization software of choice, CNet points out that both Del Monte and Costco are using Microsoft's technology as well.